EVIDENCE. — FROM AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. 309 



la response to a request for information Mr. John Bourk sends the following Inter- 

 esting note: 



" From all I can learn the English Sparrow came here (North Bay)dnriiig the win- 

 ter of 188o-'86. I think the first of them came in grain cars from the east. The first 

 I noticed were in a car at the station, and only two of them. They must have bred 

 here, as they are increasing or have increased during the past summer. There has 

 been a flock of about one hundred around our yard all winter, and, as you know, it 

 has been extremely cold. I missed them for about two weeks in the latter part of 

 February, but they returned the first part of March. They lived on hay-seeds and 

 pickings from manure piles during the winter. I have not noticed what they live on 

 ju the summer, nor where they nest. They are at Mattawa, and very numerous at 

 Pembroke. They have been at the later place, I think, for five years. I have never 

 known them to die from cold. They seem to be as hardy as the snow-bird." 



This, together with the facts that the Sparrow is each year occupying more exclu- 

 sively the regions between the centers and the advance posts, and that it is dispos- 

 sessing our native birds, should leave no doubt in any candid mind that ultimately 

 agricultural Canada will be as completely overrun by the English Sparrow as is 

 agricultural England at the present time; for if the other birds of England, which 

 have been subjected to the same long severe process of specialization are unable to 

 hold their own against the invader, much less can our native species, which havebeen 

 but recently brought into contact with civilization and its attendant hardships. 



Since none but actual personal observations are desired in this connection, I pass 

 over a multitude of hearsay cases, and state what I have seen of the Sparrow's en- 

 croachments. 



The only native species which I myself have seen dispossessed by the invader are the 

 pewee (Sayornis pliocbe), chipping sparrow (Spizella socialis), white-breasted swallow 

 (Tachycineta bicolor), house wren (Troglodytes aedon), robin (Merula migratoria), and 

 bluebird (Slalia sialis). The aggression has never, so far as I have seen, taken the form 

 of actual onslaught, except in the case of a pair of white-breasted swallows, which 

 were forcibly dispossessed of their completed nest in a pole-house. More usually the 

 native bird is merely " crowded out n through its inability to compete with the more 

 highly specialized Sparrow in the struggle for existence. On the other hand, although 

 several native species of predatory birds (as falcons, hawks, shrikes, etc.), are reported 

 as preying on the Sparrow, 1 have never seen any but the pigeon falcon (Falco columba- 

 rius) and the sparrow-hawk (F. sparverius) actually engaged in the work of destruc- 

 tion, and as these birds seldom enter or live about the large towns, their influence as 

 a check is at present but trifling. 



From a fuller working out of the lines of argument sketched, if not from the facts 

 herein stated, I think that it will be admitted that the species under consideration wall 

 very soon make itself felt as an economic power in the country if it has not already 

 done so. It then lies with us to decide, Is it a power for good or for ill ? Is it boon 

 or bane ? 



Passing over the unanimous and strongly adverse verdict of the agricultural inter- 

 est in Britain and in other European countries, and the overwhelming body of con- 

 demnatory evidence of our own market gardeners and fruit growers, as well as nat- 

 uralists, I will add my own observations. 



First. We have abundant and conclusive evidence that our own birds, as a whole, 

 are eminently beneficial to agriculture, and we have further proof that these birds are 

 retreating before the Sparrow, wdiich of itself should be sufficient to condemn the in- 

 vader, unless it can be shown that it is even more beneficial than the native birds. 



Second. But on the contrary, as above stated, in England, where the species has 

 already attained the position it is rapidly approaching in Ontario, the havoc it makes 

 in the grain fields is something past belief, and in the aggregate constitutes a heavy 

 tax on the already hard-pressed farmers of that country. 



From my own observation the Sparrow is pre-eminently a grain eater, though, as 



